Triple Agent

2004's TRIPLE AGENT is one of those talkfests in which the characters provide endless self analysis as to the whats and whys of their behavior, rather than let the audience deduce these reasons for themselves.  Woody Allen and Henry Jaglom have been guilty of such.  Director Eric Rohmer was likewise known for his verbose, leisurely paced romantic dramas in earlier days, though always maintaining interest with his analyses of relationship complexities.  Fiodor and Arsinoe are potentially as fascinating as any characters Rohmer ever created - a former general now serving as deputy of the White Russian Military Union and his stay-at-home artist wife who befriends Communists in the flat upstairs - yet the weight of their (mostly his) words overwhelm them, to say nothing of the movie itself and our engagement with it.

The Communists have won the French elections.  It is pre-WWII.  Fiodor Voronin (Sege Renko), a Russian, is a double agent who works for the Military Union and the Soviets.  The latter is not known to his wife Arsinoe (Katerina Didaskalou), a Greek.  A friendly, seemingly happily reclusive sort, she spends her days painting landscapes and city scenes.  She is not very interested in politics, and is resigned to assuming her husband's work is beyond her understanding.  The Voronins live in an apartment in Paris, mainly keeping to themselves save that couple one flight up, whose daughter becomes one of Arsinoe's subjects for a canvas.  There will be some inevitable debates over the increasing presence of the Popular Front in France and the looming Civil War in Spain.  Voronin does his bidding for the fascists and the liberals.  Will he become a triple agent, betraying those who turned him into a double agent?

How all this will affect Fiodor's pending succession of the elderly Military Union General Dobrinsky (Dimitri Rafalsky) comprises the third act of TRIPLE AGENT, and the later scenes actually resemble a spy drama.  By then, some viewers may have checked out, or fallen asleep.  Rohmer's film, while often intriguing, is painfully slow in the earlier going.  By comparison, TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY will seem like a James Bond adventure.  Scene after scene features the leads and other characters discussing the nature of "the opaqueness of human motivations." Mainly Fiodor, who pontificates at length over his secrecy, multiplicity, his cloak and dagger lifestyle.  Language is used as another character, virtually.  Ad nauseum.  I was connected to the dialogue for a time, but was worn down by the midpoint, quite weary of a film that finds the spy business (and even history) merely a backdrop for psychoanalysis and what ultimately amounts to the verbal equivalent of self flagellation.

Unlike mainly viewers, I appreciated the characters.  Fiodor was admittedly a bit of a drip, but Mr. Renko nicely portrays this cipher as a clever sort who appears as if he could, um, "go rogue" at any moment.  Ms. Didaskalou gives some appeal to her sad character, and when you learn her fate it becomes much richer.  You might want to watch the film again to see just how affecting her work is, though few will be able to make the effort.  TRIPLE AGENT is not the film to begin one's Rohmer education (try CLAIRE'S KNEE).

P.S. - Rohmer places newsreels throughout the film to chart the origins of World War II, an effective device.